It all starts in Almere, The Netherlands

Hey flight simmers,

On March 12th, I headed for South Germany or to be exact Munich, to the 8th German Flight Simulator Conference. From my home town, Almere, it's just a short train trip to Schiphol Amsterdam International Airport. You could think of driving by car or going by train, but I can tell you, going by car is a little too far for just "a one day conference". Taking the German IC Express is, compared to a flight ticket, too expensive. What's left is flying and the flight only takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes. As for the train, that takes many more hours, and I don’t want to even think about driving hours and hours when taking the car.

Anyway, I'm heading for Schiphol Airport, with my "online Lufthansa Cityline boarding pass". For this trip I have chosen Lufthansa, since the only other option, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, is just far too expensive.

Even if you're not familiar with the layout of Schiphol Airport, it's still easy to find your way around. Schiphol is, for departures, divided into three check-in areas, all interconnected with each other. Our check-in is at Departure Hall I, one of the oldest areas. Not that you see its old, but I can remember this building when I was young and dreaming about working in Aviation. On the screenshot on your right, it looks like a mess, and indeed it is.

On the other hand, I must add that the drawing shows you all the Departures Halls of Schiphol Amsterdam Airport and it's a long distance from one end to the other. If you're interested, just click on the thumbnail and a wonderful coloured picture pops-up with all the ins and outs.

Check-in was, as you could expect, quick! Quick because we had one piece of luggage for the cargo hold, and also because of the pre-printed boarding pass. It took only a matter of minutes. Ok, this time the minutes became a quarter of an hour, but anyway, it was still quick. Our flight to Munich stays within the Schenger, which means no passport control is needed, except showing it at the Lufthansa counter.

For those who don’t know what a Schenger is, the 1985 Schengen Agreement is an agreement between some European countries which allows for the abolition of systematic border controls between the participating countries. It also includes provisions on common policy for the temporary entry of persons (including the Schengen Visa), the harmonization of external border controls, and cross-border police co-operation. Since we're a little too early (coincidence?), we were able to shop a little at the airport, look around, enjoy the arriving and departing aircraft and whatever else one can think of doing while waiting at an airport.

I've seen many airports in my life and parts of a few others. For me, Schiphol stays number 1. I know what you're thinking. She's Dutch, lives in Holland and therefore Schiphol is the airport to be proud of. Of course I am and I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t. At the same time, I know Schiphol. There are so many shops in different locations, even at the end of the gates. It's spacious, modern and even though certain parts are at least 30 years old, they have been renewed.

Most of the outer walls are made of glass, which gives those who like spotting airplanes a great view. For those passengers who see the airplane only as transportation, the passenger/transfer area is refreshing and is almost living room area. Of course, the latter is ridiculous, but in many other airports it is all concrete where daylight can hardly enter the passenger/transfer area, which means those airports can be the least interesting ones to be at.

I could make many pictures for you of the Schengen protected area, with great views of gates C, B, or more importantly, the departing and arriving airplanes. While sitting and enjoying the view of the previously mentioned gates, I've added two screenshots. One shows the ground floor with the right hand side glass wall, and a view of the gates and airplanes including one of the many restaurants. The other picture is me. Really not so important since this review should tell you all about the Flight Simulator Conference.

In case you think that I'm sitting outside, no, that's not the case although it looks like I'm sitting almost with my nose against the glass windows. It was rather busy at this time of the day and I had to experiment with my new Nikon camera. The camera was unfortunately not always doing what I wanted. A camera problem or was it just me? Let's say that it was just me, since I didn't want to spend hours reading all the user's manuals.

Anyway, from this location we had a great view of all the airplanes. However, the weather wasn't that good. It wasn't raining, but cloudy and no sun.

Airplanes, more airplanes and finally Munich

As I said before, we took an earlier train to look around at Schiphol and because of the raised security, it wasn't a bad idea. While sitting and enjoying our cup of coffee, it's nice to see all the different airlines. The day before we left home, I found out that 1741 flights were planned for March 12th 2010. I've got no idea if this is a lot compared to Frankfurt, London Heathrow of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle, but that seemed like a huge amount of planes and passengers since the cargo flights were not included.

Oberschleissheim and .... the Deutsche Flugwerft

After leaving the airport behind us, we jumped in and out of the S-bahn S1, arriving in the city of Oberschleissheim. Although it's a small community, there's a lot to see here. Of course, the reason for this review is visiting the German Flugwerft museum for the MSFS conference, but, if time permits, we’ll take a walk around the nearby old and new Schleissheim Palace. Since we arrived quite early in the afternoon and having a sunny day, we found it a good idea to visit this palace. We figured out how and where the museum was, so that was settled for the next morning.

Being a day like last Friday March 12th, it wasn't a bad day to walk around Oberschleissheim and see what it offers in addition to the Palace and the Flugwerft location. That wasn't difficult, but we needed to find a location where we could eat in the evening.

The following screenshots show you the Palace and the entrance of the Flugwerft, made on Saturday morning. And yes, Saturday morning was the day of the MSFS Conference. In other words, I finally reach my goal, which was visiting the MSFS Conference on behalf of AVSIM. Luckily for most of us, this show was only related to Microsoft Flight Simulator programs, software, hardware, clubs etc.

It sounds strange, but the Paris show, held in the last weekend of November '09, was a mix between Flight Simulator, other simulation products not related to airplanes and virtual reality, although VR could be something like MSFS. Anyway, that was a mixed conference, while this show was only related to what we all like ... airplanes!

Yes, this review should be all about the Flugwerft Museum and the Flight Simulator Conference, but it was worth showing you some screenshots of the Schleissheim Palace. The Palace is split into an old and new building. The first upper left hand images are showing you the old palace, while the other upper ones are from the new palace. Two of them are the outside main old building, while the others are the main entrance. Although this building looks old from the outside, and I believe it's really old, the entrance looks relatively new and has a very modern appearance! I'm completely aware there are not enough pictures since, with the sun shining bright on this wonderful day, much more should be presented to you.

However before showing you more pictures, let's first show you what and where to expect something. The Flugwerft Schleissheim is divided into two building complexes:
- The historic part with the old maintenance hangar and the command station,
- The newly built exhibition hall including the restoration workshop. But as I’ve said, this review should be all about the conference. In other words, time to move on. The corresponding exhibition area is about 7500 m2 or 80,000 Square feet.

To make it a little easier for you to understand, I tried to split up the historical part of the Flugwerft museum building where the conference was held, as follows (see the two supplied floor plans below):
- Historical Maintenance Hangar (ground floor):
This area, directly connected to the entrance, offers the first collection of exhibitors like FS Magazine, Flight Simulator Cockpit, Flight Deck Systems, Flyself, Motion Systems and FlightXPress. They are all nicely grouped between all the airplanes on the floor and above them. I hope I haven't forgotten somebody and if so, excuse me for this!
- Lilienthal Hall (first floor)
This area is reserved for the presentations like the ones from AVSIM, Flight Sim Commander X, SimCheck Airbus A300 etc.
- Walkway to the new built exhibition area.
- Wright Gallery (first floor):
The second location is for other exhibitors such as Flight1, Digital Aviation, VATSIM, IVAO, German Airlines, SimWare, TOPCAT Software, Apollo Software, FSC (Flight Simulator Club), Aivlasoft, Mailsoft, Halycon, Flugsimulator Berlin and of course, the Aerosoft stand. Finally and for most of us very important, the catering corner where many cold and hot drinks and food can be ordered.

The amount of stands, divided throughout the historical museum, was well done although I must say that the narrow corridor in the Wright Hall was a little too narrow with so many visitors. I think this was not only a problem for me and other flight simmers, but as well as for all the exhibitors situated on both sides of the walls.

Anyway, this is how it was. There was nothing I could do about it but at the same time, with the regularly held seminars which started at 10.00 AM and finished at 4:00 PM, the amount of people varied in the Wright Hall. Ok. Let's have a look at the following screenshots before showing you a group of other screenshots I made. Many thanks go to my assistant photographer, Ingrid.

Finally, the Flight Simulator Conference

Where to start? Let's go with the beginning with the show itself and what I've seen. After that, we’ll make a short evaluation of the conference itself. Below you’ll find pictures of the different aircraft in various areas.

Historical Maintenance Hangar I don't know where my "guide" is, but on the other hand, I know pretty well where things are and what to see. The above collection of screenshots was taken in the historical maintenance hangar. You can't miss this area, since it's the only way to enter the conference and museum. As I’ve already written, this leads you to many great looking airplanes and I hope you like the pictures, and the 1st set of exhibitors. Where needed, I've added a comment. I must admit that not all the stands are photographed. However on the top view images, more exhibitors are visible. The other problem I and many others faced was the large amount of visitors and sometimes it was so crowded that you hardly could see anything of the stand. Let's move on to the next images, taken from the stair and veranda, which runs along the side of the Wright Hall with great views of the collection of historical airplanes.
		Porsche .. car or airplane?	Wow, it's a real Porsche motor, but now for an airplane!
		The FS Magazine stand in the historical maintenance hangar of the museum	Looking up to the sky at the FS Magazine stand
A very nice and flyable GA aircraft with vision	Inside look of this - probably Cessna 172 flying machine	Great top view of the Flightdeck Systems GA plane	Another possibility, a replica of the Airbus A320. Not bad at all, but a little too purple/blue?
Close-up of the captains side	Not completely finished pedestal, but great looking throttle section Empty, nothing left?

Top view Historical Maintenance Hangar Luckily, there’s a little more visible on these screenshots. As I’ve written before, there's a corridor along one side of the hangar that allows you to see every static or hanging airplane. From both sides of the hangar you're able to reach the corridor via stairs. Moreover, the two upper middle images show not only the FS Magazine stand, but also the FlightXPress stand. There's a lot to see in this area, ranging from normal to abnormal airplanes or at least has wings. There's also an example with solar cells on top of the wing. There’s a lot to see so enjoy these pictures before we head to Wright Hall.

New Exhibition Museum By using the corridor that connects the historical building with the new exhibition museum part, you’ll see a great collection of different aircraft. Unfortunately, I couldn’t place them all in this review. It's already looking like a slide show, but still worth digging into it. Let's show you some of those airplanes, which by the way don't belong to the Flight Simulator conference. It starts with some real historic planes next to the maintenance hangar and the corridor, which connects old with new. All the images, starting on the second row, should give you an impression of what's all there. Before I forget, I’ve included a few pictures showing you a real operational hangar, where old aircraft are repaired and placed in the museum. The overall collection is huge and as you can see for yourself, it not only offers airplanes, but also helicopters, vintage and modern fighters, different engines ranging from old piston types to more modern jet engines. Is this all or did I miss something? I think I've covered all the different models, but while writing this, I'm also sure I missed a plane or something else. Although it was too much to see in one day, my overall museum impression of the location and collection was awesome!

It all ends in Oberschleissheim, Germany

Even though it was just a one day conference, for me it felt like a complete weekend. You see a lot, meet new people or make some time available to talk with old friends. Because of the great location - the Schleissheim Deutsches Museum - I wanted to see not only the exhibitors, but also the museum itself with all the airplanes with their piston and jet engines. Altogether, a lot of walking from one area to another, but worth seeing. I was also pleased that English was no problem at this show. Wherever I was, I could easily have a discussion in English, which is great news!

However, as the sub-title suggests, this 8th Flight Simulator Conference has ended and we're already heading for home. With the same S-bahn that brought us to Schleissheim, we're now heading for terminal 2 of Munich Airport. First we need to dump our luggage, then some shopping before walking to gate G05. Then we had our last German coffee with ....... ah no, it's too early in the morning.

Our flight back home is with Lufthansa once more, and for a change, a different type of airplane. This time the Embraer 195 from Augsburg Airways, flying on behalf of the Lufthansa Group. More information about Augsburg Airways, as well as the Embraer 190, can be found via this link. Before moving to the next and last section, I would like to complete and finish this review with some screenshots taken from my window seat, heading to Schiphol Airport Amsterdam. These screenshots are all taken at Munich airport and as you can see, it’s raining. Or are those tears, since we're leaving Munich?

Thanks

This is not really a summary since this review was all about the 8th German Flight Simulator Conference. However, it gives me the chance to thank a few people who made it all possible.

From AVSIM, I would like to thank Robert Whitwell (Reviews Editor) and Tom Allensworth (AVSIM CEO), who made this trip to Munich possible. Furthermore, from Aerosoft, thanks to Alejandro Diaz (Product Manager France, Spain and Latin America) and Winfried Diekmann (Aerosoft Managing Director) and finally, Ingrid, who offered personal assistance when needed. I hope I haven’t forgotten any important names, but In case I've not mentioned you, don't worry, we'll see each other next at ........

A final word about this 8th German Flight Simulator Conference ... AWESOME. Although completely exhausted after the Captain's Dinner and from a whole day walking in and around the museum and stands, stairs up, and after a while, stairs down, I enjoyed every minute. I finally had the chance to meet different developers, publishers, project managers and many others.

In the end I can only come to one conclusion .... AVSIM should attend these European exhibitions and if possible, have their own stand to promote AVSIM even more than we're already doing!

Kind regards,
Angelique van Campen